Many know I haven't been much of a fan of the Taste. But that's because I hate crowds, I'm turned off by eating while standing in the sun and I suffer from random-sweat-transferaphobia.

Yet on Wednesday as the Taste opened, the lunchtime crowds were thin and it was cool enough so you didn't have to flinch at the bare arms of hefty pedestrians.

Besides, I'd already been given a rather public assignment from famed Tribune food critic Phil Vettel in his Taste preview.

Vettel had ordered me to go in search of a plump tube stuffed with unknown fats and salts and named after a notorious Chicago politician.

The Daley Dog.

It's named after former Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Vettel wrote: "Chicago's Dog House, for instance, is serving a 'Mayor Daley Tribute Dog,' which could be a very good food item or the inspiration for a John Kass column. Possibly both."

After daring me to go, I couldn't refuse. But how was I supposed to chomp on a Daley Dog and maintain my dignity?

Daley has been trying to avoid testifying in a trial involving millions of lost city tax dollars and the infamous Park Grill, also known as the "Clout Cafe." His lawyers say he's ill.

Unfortunately, as I wandered the Taste, I had no lawyers.

So I asked the five Chicago cops I spotted near the Chicago's Dog House booth to eat Daley Dogs on me.

"No (bleeping) way," said one officer.

I thought your motto was "We Serve and Protect."

"Not a chance," said another cop.

"Forget it," said another.

All were like this.

So I went up the line, begging strangers to try the dog named after the mayor who'd spent two decades plunging Chicago into financial ruin.

"No, thank you," said Yilei Yang, a University of Chicago-trained economist. "I'm here for the alligator. I'd rather eat a reptile."

His colleague, Luke Kukla, knew all about Daley trying to avoid testifying in the trial. He said no to a Daley on a bun.

But if I wrapped it up in a subpoena, would you take it?

"I'd rather have the alligator," Kukla said, opting for the popular Chicago's Dog House item.

All brushed off my free Daley Dog offer, until I met two gullible — I mean, very nice — Canadians from Vancouver.

Terry Cotter and his wife, Sue, are tourists. And they wanted the slithery reptile, too. But they were too polite to refuse when I purchased two Daleys and told them to eat hearty.

"Very good," said Terry as he chomped.

"Hmmm," said Sue. "Thank you. It's named after a famous politician?"

I didn't know quite what to say.

If Taste of Chicago were a taste of real Chicago, then all the main booths would be staffed by Illinois political leaders offering their favorite food: pork.

Some of it would be raw and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Some would be well done and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They wouldn't mind, since they didn't pay for it.

A few booths would offer giant hams swinging on ropes, allowing blindfolded taxpayers to run up and smash their faces in there, maybe break a nose, while trying to snap off a few bites.

But what would Daley's successor, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, offer at a special Rahmfather booth?

I was thinking kosher dogs, but on a stick, so we wouldn't be tempted with carbs.

"(Something) on a stick is what they give us already," said a woman named Celeste. "So let them sell it. (Something) on a stick."

But Celeste, I can't print that.

"Well, that's what they give us," she said.

Happily, most folks want to know what they're getting before they plunk down the tickets to pay.

But a woman named Eileen Stephens, standing in front of a well-known rib joint, said she'd just decided not to eat.

Eileen, we're standing in rib smoke, I said. It was the smoke that convinced her, she said.

"My husband makes ribs the right way at home," she said. "My husband's up the night before soaking the ribs in vinegar. His ribs take four or five hours of slow cooking. So I've decided I'm not going to have these (commercial) ribs. I'm not going to have a thing."

She walked off, a proud woman, so loyal to her husband's barbecue that I almost started to cry. I needed a drink.